A stroll through the U.S. Senate web site will bring you to the following passage, from the Party Leadership section (also here):
Although party floor leadership posts carry great responsibility, they provide few specific powers. Instead, floor leaders have largely had to depend on their individual skill, intelligence, and personality. Majority leaders seek to balance the needs of senators of both parties to express their views fully on a bill with the pressures to move the bill as quickly as possible toward enactment. These conflicting demands have required majority leaders to develop skills in compromise, accommodation, and diplomacy. Lyndon Johnson, who held the post in the 1950s, once said that the greatest power of the majority leader was “the power of persuasion.” (Emphasis added.)
That’s not what’s on the tube these days, is it?
There’s precious little compromise, accommodation, and diplomacy going on in the Senate.
Is the Majority Leader in thrall to some power behind the curtain?
Is he just taking the tickets while Someone Else drives the bus?
Inquiring minds want to know. And the rest of us, too.
